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English Video Tutorials / Krpano Learning Curve

Hello :-) I am new here...

I have been creating panos for several years and I have been using Panotour for quite some time. But I feel very constrained by what it can do and I need freedom to dream up new interfaces beyond what Panotour is capable of for my clients.

I have a basic knowledge of coding from building my website over the years but it just does not prepare me for the mountain I have to climb if I want to use Krpano.

I am bewildered by the amount of information I need to learn if I want to proficiently use Krpano. The main answer to basic questions seems to be (RTFM) read the documentation. There are fundamental things about how to work with Krpano code that are not explained in there. What the code does is explained but there is no step-by-step way to how it all relates to each other. I have been at this for 4 days straight and I was up until 4 am last night working on a problem. I am slowly learning how to use Krpano in the most slow and painful way possible.

The documentation uses an incredible amount of jargon that the average user does not understand and it's not exactly written in the most poetic way. "When the xml will parsed, then the xml elements will be transformed/mapped into the krpano internal data structures. That means after parsing there is internally no xml anymore."

The reason I want to switch to Krpano is because of the endless customisation possibilities. I think it's going to take me several hours to learn how to add a button to the control bar...

When a photographer looks at his options for creating interfaces for panos he obviously comes across Krpano as the industry standard amongst professionals and he downloads it. He attempts to use the tools and looks for instructions on how to do so. There is absolutely nothing to help get over the initial hump of learning how to customise the interface besides a basic 5 minute video which only shows how to make a default skin. I am DETERMINED to learn Krpano but I have never faced such a challenge and I feel completely bewildered by it.

Panotour and Pano2vr have pleasant video tutorials in English to help you understand the complexities of these programs; they are nothing compared to learning Krpano.

I don't like to read manuals, Youtube has spoiled me. I believe a large percentage of the population prefers learning from tutorial videos to reading documentation. I just don't learn by reading documentation in the way I learn from tutorial videos.

I don't understand why there are no video tutorials on the customisation of Krpano in English. The fact that there are some in German makes it even more frustrating. Even if Krpano was to pay a third party, including a user on this forum to create a series of basic to intermediate tutorials they would pay for themselves in sales. A user here could also make a few bucks from youtube by monetizing their own tutorial videos. There must be a huge amount of potential customers that are buying Panotour or Pano2vr because they feel they will NEVER be able to learn Krpano.

I know this forum and it's members are INCREDIBLY helpful from what I have seen. But I am missing some fundamental information somewhere and any problem solving pasted code would be lost on me.

Well, I am going to make some more coffee... Going to try to add a button to the control bar...

As a relative newcomer to krpano myself I can sympathise with you. However, stick with it and do explore all the examples with code included in the download package - I find these my greatest source of help when learning a new feature.

I first looked at krpano about three years ago, but not being a programmer I thought the learning curve too steep and went with alternative software with a graphic user interface. But I kept seeing example panos made with krpano, and I felt their image quality and smoothness of panning was superior to what I was achieving. So about last Christmas I bought a krpano license and set about learning how to use it. Progress has been slow, but now, five months on, I am really glad I made that decision.